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Once upon a time civilized societies tortured accused criminals into confessing. “Barbaric,” we say now. Capital punishment, until recently and almost everywhere, was the sentence for a vast array of crimes, from murder down to petty theft; sometimes for no offense at all, at the whim of a lordly aristocrat irked by a peasant’s insolence. “Barbaric.” Increasingly, in the advanced democracies, that is the current of thought and feeling.
Civilization matures and grows more humane. Capital punishment is lately dubbed “judicial murder,” with the accent on murder. The European Union officially banned it in 2000, as have 23 U.S. states, with moratoria in effect in most others. Europe’s last execution – Belarus excepted – was in 1997. South Korea’s was in 1987.
Then there’s Japan. Executions proceed apace. The U.N. and human rights groups worldwide protest in vain. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations calls for abolition – unheeded. A 2020 government poll shows 80 percent of the public favor retaining it. And retained it is – boldly and unapologetically. Since 2000 there have been 98 executions in Japan.
Is Japan “barbaric”? Journalist Yoichi Miyashita, writing in Shukan Shincho (March 23), denies it. He’s covered capital punishment-related issues in Japan, Europe and the U.S. He’s come to feel there’s a case to be made for retention – a moral and civilized case. Helping him make it is Yuki Minamino. Speaking of convicted murderer Kyozo Isohi, she says, “He killed my husband. Why should he live?”
Music producer Shingo Minamino, walking down an Osaka street one June day in 2012, was stabbed from behind. He and another victim, Toshi Sasaki, were rushed to hospital, where both died. Arrested at the scene was Isohi, then just out of prison after serving a sentence for drug abuse. Prison had not cured him, apparently. He heard voices in his head, he told investigators. “Kill! Kill!” they cried. He said initially he’d wanted to die, and killed in order to be executed. Later he seems to have changed his mind, and expressed a fear of dying.
Osaka District Court sentenced him to death. Appealed, the ruling was amended to life in prison. It went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 2019 upheld the lighter sentence – life, not death.
“He’s expressed no remorse, shown no repentance,” Minamino tells Miyashita. If drug hallucinations led him on, “he took drugs of his own free will. That’s no reason to reduce the sentence.”
Toshi Sasaki’s son feels the same way. “I want him dead,” he says. “I’d push the button myself.”
“Only the bereaved,” says Minamino, “can know the hatred the bereaved feel for the murderer.”
Extreme cases, it is said, make bad laws. Many murderers do express remorse. Some convicted murderers are not even guilty. Law courts, like humans in general, are fallible and corruptible, sometimes biased – notably against the poor. Only last month a retrial was finally granted Iwao Hakamada, who spent 48 years on death row for a mass murder committed in 1966 but not by him. Released from prison in 2014, aged 78, he still awaits official vindication, though his innocence is acknowledged. Now 87, he survives as the world’s longest-held death row inmate. Nothing can give him back his lost years, but his execution, had it been carried out, would have deepened the injustice.
Among Japan’s harshest critics has been France. Miyashita turns his attention to that country. Can it seriously claim moral superiority?
In May 2022 in Marseille a 19-year-old man was shot dead by police. Stopped for questioning, he’d apparently tried to flee. “It’s capital punishment by another name,” writes Miyashita in Shukan Shincho; “capital punishment executed on the street” he quotes the victim’s father as telling him – arbitrarily by police instead of judicially in court.
The social order in France, writes Miyashita, who lived in Europe for 25 years, has deteriorated markedly in recent years. Japan, he says, remains comparatively safe. In Marseille in 2022 there were 149 incidents of murder and attempted murder; in Tokyo in 2021, 83. Marseille’s population is 900,000; Tokyo’s, 14 million.
In France in 2018 there were 26 killings of suspects by police; in Japan that year, two.
Michael Hoffman is the author of “Arimasen.”
© Japan Today
44 Comments
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Desiree Lingmark
Yes, capital punishment is barbaric. Yes, Japan should ban it right away. No, comparing Japan to other countries does not provide any absolution.
cleo
Yes, the death penalty is barbaric.
There is a heavy percentage in favour of retaining it in Japan because kids are taught in school that it's the right thing.
My son and some of his friends got their teacher in a tizzwazz in high school when the class was asked to write an essay on the judicial system (can't remember what the actual title of the essay was) and they turned in papers giving all the reasons why capital punishment is barbaric and should be abolished.
They were bright kids.
wallace
The death penalty and the treatment of convicts on death row are barbaric but that does not make the country barbaric.
gaijintraveller
Once upon a time civilized societies tortured accused criminals into confessing.
Which country springs to mind when you read this? Is Japan's hostage justice system torture? Now combine that with capital punishment.
Moonraker
So, just how many murders have been committed in Japan because of the death penalty; because the perpetrator actually wants to die that way? The murderer knows he/she probably has to kill more than one person to get the death penalty, because that is the convention. In this case, we cannot even say the death penalty is a deterrent; it's a motive. In addition, some people kill because the just wanted to know what it was like to kill someone as well, so not much deterrent value there. Of course, revenge is a motive for keeping the death penalty but there is a question of whether that should be the motive.
Peter Neil
People usually oppose the death penalty until one of their loved ones is barbarically murdered by a barbarian.
1glenn
There are a lot of things in life that we don't like, but accept.
Gaijinjland
I would argue the US, the majority of states that still practice capitol punishment, is more barbaric, with the drug cocktails they use to induce death. Some inmates have taken almost an hour to die. Do they deserve it? Possibly. Hanging by comparison isn’t barbaric.
cleo
The ‘just, deserved’ revenge-deaths of 100 vicious serial killers is not worth the ‘Oops, we got the wrong person’ judicial murder of a single innocent person.
Even if it makes the family of the original victim feel good.
change
Cleo, you stole my notebook. I was gonna type the exact same opinion.
lunatic
The world sees the J-justice as a joke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYfHWsWJhtg
K3PO
Life imprisonment for premeditated murderers is a harsher punishment than the death penalty. Many criminals say so themselves.
Ian Brady tried to starve himself to death, but authorities put him on a drip feed to keep him alive. You could say that is cruel, vengeful or barbaric. I thought it was fitting.
Living in Japan, not once did I think it was barbaric.
itsonlyrocknroll
Japan is not a barbaric country, to imply that retention of Capital Punishment constitutes barbarism depends on the method, in respect of comparison, to a straight forward physically led strapped march to the “gallows” to have life extinguish in seconds.
UK, a Judge would don black cap and black gloves. Then recite…
The sentence of this court is that you will be taken from here to the place from whence you came and there be kept in close confinement until [date of execution], and upon that day that you be taken to the place of execution and there hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may God have mercy upon your soul.
So, in comparison to ancient forms of the death penalty Poena Cullei “penalty of the sack.”, the photo is the sterility of judicial execution, humane.
A court must distinguish/define judicial reasoning for such punishment, so should match or counter a scenario/debate the crime and a retribution state that reformative justice cannot be applied.
Can Capital Punishment be Justified?
This cuts to the heart of the matter.
No, personally I question the nature of retribution and state execution.
However, the victims’ families of such heinous crimes spend a lifetime contemplating grieving the loss.
Peter Neil
I guess vicious dogs that maul and kill a child should be put in dog prison for life, Right?
Where’s the outrage about “putting them down,” a euphemism for executing them?
Murderers are barbaric, not societies that eliminate them.
Clayton K. Char
Is incarcerating an individual for their natural born life is humane or barbaric?
virusrex
Capital punishment is not a reflection on the humanity of the criminal, his actions would. The punishment is a reflection of the humanity of society that uses it.
Journalist Miyashita cheapens his position terribly by using this obviously flawed argument. Which could indicate he is not so sure about the position he is trying to defend.
Citypop
No it makes Japan a safe and smart country.
ebisen
You are not entitled to an opinion, unless you have someone in your family brutally murdered by one such animal. You can plead (s)he is spared the death penalty, to the judge then, if you feel it would be barbaric. Otherwise, you are not entitled to talk for the people that actually are in that situation. Luckily Japan is not a Christian, fake, "turn the other cheek" country.
colenalperu
March 14, 2023 - longest death row inmate retrial confirmed. Barbaric or not, guilty verdicts are not always correct so the risk is there. Putting to death innocent citizens is something death penalty supporters rarely address. Presumably it's 'collateral damage'?
Sven Asai
It’s good for society and the victims’ families, so tell me why that should be ignored and only the best option for the killer should be considered? That’s making no sense and is against the interests of the overwhelming majority.
cleo
It's not good for society, and it does nothing to bring the victim back.
You think being stuck in a cell for the rest of your life, looked on as scuba is a good option?
And check the post above yours. How is killing innocents the 'best option' for anyone?
cleo
*looked on as scum.*
Autocorrect has a life of its own.
CPTOMO
Does capital punishment make Japan a 'barbaric' country?
No, those committing the crimes that result in them receiving the sentence of capital punishment are the barbarians.
Dr Maybe
I'm surprised that there have been 23 comments so far, and not once has the term "forced confessions" come up. If you want to seriously consider whether Japan is "barbaric" or not in this area, take a proper look at the role of the police, their quotas, pressure to get convictions, 99% of cases going to trial ending in guilty verdicts etc. This is where the term "barbaric" can rightly be applied.
In Japan, suspects can be held for 23 days without charge. 23 days!! Japanese police are known to torture victims for days until they are so mentally disoriented that they sign confessions which send them to death row. That's on record. FACT. Barbaric? Yes.
Dr Maybe
If you doubt what I'm saying, pull up a chair & watch the video. You'll see testimony from people who have worked inside the system, and the moving story of a victim of this barbarism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYJpc2y37oU
browny1
When discussing this with advanced english class adults a few years back, I put to the majority who supported capital punishment -
"Why do you want to kill people?"
They said "Oh no we don't want to kill people".
I said, "But by supporting the system you are killing people, even if it's only through your taxes".
They said, "But they're very bad people - killers".
I said, "So you want to kill very bad people - killers"?
They said "Oh no, no, no we don't want to kill people".
I said, "But your support means you are involved in killing people".
They said, " Oh no we don't want to kill people"
And so on.
Can't have it both ways. Either you support the killing of people - terrible ones, or you don't support killing even terrible ones.
The believers didn't really like that angle. Too uncomfortable.
lunatic
It's important to mention that forced confession is the main evidence on 99% of trials.
99% of Japanese judges have never delivered an innocent verdict in their entire career.
John-San
Of course it barbaric, I am for a very quick death, no death row, If you are proven guilty you should die that day. No wasting taxes on murders, lead them from the court room over to the gallows and hang them straight after the verdict.
TaiwanIsNotChina
I'm not a victim of a major crime, so I can't really speak to what they would want, but prison seems pretty awful (no internet!). I bet if you handed life sentences and the possibility of euthanasia like in Belgium, the prisoners would jump at the chance to get the needle. Also not telling the prisoner their execution date is 100% barbaric: natural deaths typically take at least a couple of weeks to take you out, not an hour.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Uh what? Hanging is only humane if it breaks your neck. How would we even know if that is happening when the Japanese system hides the convulsions under a floor?
TaiwanIsNotChina
A human is not a dog and a human has much greater rights. Sorry if that universality upsets you.
John-San
Empathy for murderers ? that Barbaric.
TokyoLiving
Never..
Assassins must be punished..
John-San
Hanging should be the standard for murder. This takes away the burden place on the Judge. The Judge might oppose death but he is the person has to live with the guilt of killing an other human. This way it out of his hands if found guilty.
Sanjinosebleed
Tough one. I think Japan has the right mix of minimum 2 murders before capital punishment can be considered AS long as they are proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt which is questionable in the Japanese legal system!
lunatic
If JapanToday ever put an article about the Presumption of Innocence and Prosecutors Prevarication in the J-Justice, the Internet will implode.
Zizi
Absolutely barbaric
englisc aspyrgend
Yes.
State murder is intrinsically wrong, by allowing it to continue (Japan is a democratic country) the people are as complicit in the killing as any murderer.
So the killing of her husband was wrong and unjustified? How then is the killing of the criminal any different, it is still the extinguishing of a human life, by the same argument her demand and complicity in his death undermines her right to life.
Criminal law and punishment is founded in the sentencing phase on 3 purposes society’s punishment of the offender, protection of society from further criminal acts by the offender and discouragement of others likely to commit such acts. Demonstratively the death sentence fails to discourage as murders still occur and even encourages them for those seeking death by law. Protection of society is equally well served by life imprisonment (and not all murderers are any further threat to society) so there is little support for the death sentence in this. Punishment is equally well served and perhaps better served by imprisonment.
Any moral person can see that it is unacceptable that even one innocent person be murdered by the state, especially as there is an alternative available.
Thunderbird2
My problem is that unless there is 100% proof then execution shouldn't even be on the table... juries can get it wrong, confessions can be forced, evidence planted or faked. There are just too many variables at play for anyone to be 100% certain unless they are live on camera doing the killing - and none of us want to see that!
Beyond reasonable doubt means little when there is even a scintilla of a chance that the person in the dock is innocent.
bass4funk
No!
I absolutely don't think so, an eye for an eye. If you intentionally kill someone or are charged with treason then you should either spend the rest of your life in prison or pay the ultimate price.
Saine
Oshima's Koshikei (Death by Hanging) is an excellent film that examines the death penalty as well as guilt and justice. Truly a masterpiece of Japanese film. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in this topic.
Eastman
capital punishment is okay.
Fighto!
No. A small number of the worst of the worst, most heinous criminals - such as child killers - forfeit their right to be kept alive by committing their evil deeds. There has to be an ultimate punishment for the worst crimes imaginable. We are talking about a handful of executions per year - and none of these scum will be mourned.
Anyone here who claims that capital punishment is "barbaric" : you would not have the guts to go and tell that to the parents of a child who has been brutally murdered, would you.
Japan has changed greatly, and will continue to do so - but it is not going to change this policy any time soon. The public is massively in favor of capital punishment, with support running at 80 percent. Good for them.